


The Slow Death of William Hargrove

by WakingNightmares



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Child Abuse, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-09-23 03:17:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20333164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WakingNightmares/pseuds/WakingNightmares
Summary: Billy is almost eight when his mother leaves.It takes him a while to understand what’s happened; that she isn’t coming back. His father tells him that, of course, ranting and raving about it every night. How she’d left them, abandoned them for another man and his family. That she’s a slut, and a whore, and they’re better off without her.





	The Slow Death of William Hargrove

**Author's Note:**

> So I wanted to explore what turned Billy into the person we see in the show, and this was the result. I make no promises about updates, I've got another WIP I'm trying to finish which takes priority.

Billy is almost eight when his mother leaves.

It takes him a while to understand what’s happened; that she isn’t coming back. His father tells him that, of course, ranting and raving about it every night. How she’d left them, abandoned them for another man and his family. That she’s a slut, and a whore, and they’re better off without her.

When Billy calls her on the phone, and asks why she isn’t coming home, she says it’ll be okay. That she’ll come and get him soon, and they’ll be together.

He tries telling her how bad his dad has gotten. How he looks at Billy, and says he looks just like his mother, beer bottle hanging from his hand. How Billy had had trouble dialing the phone through his swollen eyes, from the broken nose his father had given him the night before.

Sure, his father has always slapped him around a bit; whose father doesn’t? But the punch was something new -something unexpected. A swat to the head, or a slap around the ears was -as Billy found out -nothing like one of his father’s meaty fists connecting with his nose.

He tells the nurse at school he fell rollerblading. She gives him a knowing little smile, and asks for the truth. When Billy starts to panic, thinking that she knows, she chuckles a bit, and tells him she understands. Boys will be boys after all, and while she can’t condone fighting, she understands he’s having a difficult time.

Billy simply nodded; he hadn’t corrected her, simply giving her a ‘yes, ma’am, sorry, ma’am’.

As he tells his mother this, he hears her make an odd noise that he can’t quite understand. Then she tells him, her voice hoarse, that he can’t tell anyone the truth. If he tells, they’ll take him away, and put him in a foster home. 

Billy desperately wants to avoid that. He knows kids at school who are foster kids. They’re always dirty, wearing old clothes that don’t fit, and most of them smell. They don’t have any friends, and everyone picks on them.

His mother tells him that she needs just a little longer, and she’ll have enough money to come and get him.

Billy tells her that he has eleven dollars saved in his little car-shaped piggy bank. That he’s old enough to take a bus, and eleven dollars will get him out of Los Angeles, maybe even out of California.

She makes that funny noise again, and tells him to hold on to his money. She just needs him to be strong a bit longer.

A bit longer becomes the hallmark of their conversations.

A year passes. Billy’s gift for his ninth birthday was his first broken arm.

In his father’s defense, Neil hadn’t broken his arm. He’d knocked out one of his back teeth, given him a black eye, and covered him in dark red bruises that will eventually turn into an ugly yellow mass on his chest, but Neil hadn’t pushed him down the stairs.

That had been all Billy. He’d been trying to run, and misjudged where the steps actually started, and he’d tumbled all the way down the thirteen steps to the bottom.

For the first time in a long time, Billy can see the concern on Neil’s face as his father picks him up, and carries him to the car. He tells Billy how sorry he is, that he didn’t mean it.

Billy dutifully tells the nurse at the hospital that he fell down the stairs; it has the benefit of being true, even if he leaves out the reason he fell down the stairs.

Neil gives him five dollars, and let’s him spend two hours at the arcade. A week later, Neil buys him a new set of rollerblades. While Neil still drinks too much, he leaves Billy alone the entire time the cast is on -a whole eight weeks.

Billy doesn’t bother telling his mother when she calls. It’s getting less and less frequent that she calls anyways, and he hates the sad sound in her voice when he tells her things like that. Since she only calls once a month, he wants to talk to her when she’s happy.

It’s three months after the stair incident when he first hears a funny noise in the background. When he asks what it is, his mother is quiet for a few seconds. Then she tells him that he’s a big brother now.

All he can think to ask is when she’s coming to get him. ‘Soon, just a bit longer, baby’ is the response. Same as always.

He doesn’t ask again, and the phone calls start to become less and less frequent.

Neil starts ‘dating’ when Billy is ten. Billy doesn’t really understand it at first; he doesn’t understand why his father is bringing home strange women, wearing too much make-up, and too much perfume, women who tell him to call them ‘mom’. He points out exactly once that he has a mom already.

His father tells the woman -Rita, he thinks her name was -to wait in the living room for him. Then he frog-marches Billy to his room.

Billy’s memories of that night will forever remain fuzzy. He dimly remembers his father punching him so hard that his head bounced off the nightstand. He only barely remembers trying to scramble out of the bedroom, _ away, away, away. _

Everything else is a blur until he woke up the next morning.

He stays in his bedroom for four days, until the worst of the bruises have faded. Luckily, it’d happened on a Thursday, so he only missed two days of school.

Women come, and women go. None of them last too long. Some are nice, and tell Neil to take it easy on him. Some are mean, and are as quick to smack him around as Neil is.

The nice ones never last long.

Billy is twelve when his father brings Susan home for the first time, a little red-headed girl in braids trailing along behind her. Neil tells him that her name is Maxine, and that Billy will be baby-sitting her while Neil and Susan go out for the night.

Susan leaves very detailed instructions. Phone numbers pinned to the fridge, money to order pizza, bath at seven thirty, and bedtime is at nine. She’s not allowed to watch any scary movies.

Billy follows the instructions to the letter. Max -as she informs him, as soon as Neil and Susan have left -is easy enough, and seems content to watch Flintstones and Scooby Doo until bedtime. At nine sharp, he turns the TV off, gets her a pillow and a blanket, and lets her settle herself in on the couch.

He spends the next four hours at the kitchen table. He finishes up all of his homework first, which knocks out the first hour and a half. Then he starts on his crossword puzzle book, and keeps himself occupied with that until, at a little after one, Neil and Susan come home.

He keeps his answers short and simple. Yes, ma’am, Max ate all of her dinner. Yes, ma’am, she had her bath. No, ma’am, she didn’t argue at all, just went straight to bed.

She tells Neil how polite Billy is, and how well he’s done raising such a fine young boy. When Neil gets Max loaded in the car, she slips him a five dollar bill.

Susan and Max both start coming over more often. Billy later finds out that their apartment is only half a mile away from his house.

Soon, Max starts getting off the bus with Billy. After about a month, she tells him that Susan left her father, although she doesn’t understand why. Then she tells him -with more than a bit of attitude -that none of this matters, because her father is coming for her as soon as he gets back on his feet, whatever that means.

Billy tells her the truth: that’s what all parents say when they leave. That he’s been waiting for his mom to come back for four years now. He tells her as nicely as he can that her father will meet another lady, have a baby, and forget about her. Best to just accept it and move on.

She punches him in the chest, and before he can stop himself, he swats her back.

When Neil and Susan come home -because they ride together from the plant now - Neil takes one look at Max, and orders Billy to his room.

In her defense, Susan tries to stand up for him. Tells Neil that it looks like Billy only gave as good as he got, and Max admits she hit him first. Billy thinks he’s in the clear, as Max gathers her backpack and jacket, right up until her and Susan head towards the car.

Neil tells them to go along, he’ll be out in just a minute. And Billy can hear that edge in his voice, as Neil comes back to the kitchen.

Immediately, he tries explaining. Max hit him first, he didn’t hit her hard, sir, just slapped her a little. Neil ignores him, backing him up against the fridge, before hissing that they’ll talk about this when he gets back from dropping Susan and Max off.

Billy waits in his room. An hour passes. Then two. Three. Finally, around eight o’clock, he hears the front door open, and Neil’s heavy boots coming down the hallway.

It’s the first time Neil uses his thick leather belt.

It isn’t the last.


End file.
